“Etiquette! With a nigger!” jeered Falkner, going into the store to light his pipe.
Now the place of Tyingoza’s accustomed seat was right under a window, which was open. Seated as he was, with his back to the wall, his head came about a foot and a half below the sill of this. I talked with him a little longer and he was just expressing the opinion that it was high time for us to start, when I saw the head and shoulders of Falkner Sewin lounging through this window. He was puffing away at his pipe, looking somewhat intently down upon the chief’s head, and then, to my horror, and of course before I could prevent it, down went his hand. With an agility surprising in a man of his years and build Tyingoza sprang to his feet, and stood with head erect, gazing sternly and indignantly at Falkner, who, still half through the window, was examining minutely a piece which he had dug out of the chief’s head-ring, and still held in his thumb nail, grinning like the stark, record idiot he was.
There was a second or two of tension, then the four score or so of natives who were squatting around, sprang to their feet as one man, and a deep gasp of horror and resentment escaped from every chest.
“Why what’s the row?” cried the offending fool. “The old boy seems a bit cross.”
“A bit cross,” I repeated grimly. “Why you’ve insulted him about as completely as if you’d hit him in the face.”
“Oh bosh! Here, I haven’t hurt his old bit of stick liquorice. Tell him to stick his head down and I’ll plaster the bit back in its place again, and give him a shilling into the bargain.”
The expression of Tyingoza’s face had undergone a complete change, and the indignant look had given way to one of the most withering contempt, as with a wave of the hand towards Falkner, in which there was a suggestion of pity, he said softly:
“Hau! Sengaloku igcwane.” (“It seems an idiot.”) Then, turning, he walked away.